Fresh from getting pinged by Cameron Brewer for putting up her election signs on Saturday night despite an instruction from Council that election signs before midnight on the 26th were illegal, she’s in hot water again.

This time, for gaming with the rules about hoarding numbers. She’s only allowed on sign per public site.

Typical with Labour MPs, who don’t think laws apply to them, she had three here at Cox’s Bay Park.

Two other signs were carried away by Council officers, who proudly told bystanders that non-compliant signs would be removed by Council, and the owner of them fined.

Good on them for enforcing the by-laws.

At $300 a piece, Jacinda, can you really afford to keep breaking the law?

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

“Despite the absence of a formal promoter statement, the pamphlet did include in a prominent way the name and contact details of the party leader, so there could be no doubt as to its author,” Grant Robertson said.

Be aware that if something is deemed to be an election advertisement that promotes a candidate or party, then it must have the prior written authorisation of the candidate or party.

The costs of any advertisements published during the regulated period that promote a candidate or party will count towards both the candidate’s and the party’s election expenses.

You don’t need to give yourself written authorisation to publish your candidate advertisements but if your publications encourage or persuade voters to vote for your party, you must have written authorisation from the party secretary.

There are two reasons for these requirements:

firstly, it provides candidates and parties a power of veto over who is able to promote them through election advertising;

secondly, if a third party wants to promote you by publishing advertisements during the regulated period, they must have your prior written authorisation, because it will count as part of your election expenses.

So what this means is that the Goffice, and Phillip Bruce Goff in particular, have broken another law. Namely, that the Parliamentary arm of the Labour Party was not officially authorised to be sending out election ads. Logically, this means that the Parliamentary arm of the Labour Party and Phil Goff himself are liable for any fines – up to $40,000 on each count.

This is amateur-hour stuff. It’s a basic matter that Labour should have sorted out long before the Goffice started pumping out tens of thousands of taxpayer funded election ads.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

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Mike Smith used to be the General Secretary of the Labour Party. Now he blogs at The Standard and runs the Fabian Society.

Earlier today I blogged about Mike Smith whining about political funding. This is of course the same Mike Smith who lied about the pledge card. He promised election officials it would be included in the Labour spending cap before the election in 2005 – but then went back on his word. If he had actually honoured his promise, Labour’s overspending in 2005 would have been laid bare. This is as serious as it gets in terms of election breaches. Of course, Labour later legislated to validate this illegal activity.

This is the same Mike Smith who the Electoral Commission has busted before breaching rules:

The Electoral Commission ruled Labour secretary Mike Smith broke the law by using the party, rather than his home, address on a promotional CD and a taxpayer-funded Labour brochure was caught for not carrying authorisation.

So know that when Mike Smith talks about election spending and the rules, his default position is to lie, cheat and steal in order to benefit the Labour party and disadvantage the taxpayer and their political opponents.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

Re: Parliamentary Services Funded Travel being used for Party Business

Dear Dr Smith,

Could you please clarify the rules around the use of Parliamentary Services funded travel where MPs are predominantly travelling to campaign.

The example I have in mind is MPs travelling to swing seats during the next four months to campaign on behalf of their party’s candidate.

In the event that MPs are breaking the rules around the use of parliamentary services funding to campaign could you please inform me what steps you will be taking to recover the costs from those who have breached the rules?

Should you choose not to recover these costs could you please inform me what steps I can personally take to recover these funds on behalf of the New Zealand tax payer.

Further would you be able to inform me of whether I should refer these breaches to the Electoral Commission if this spending is not included in Party’s electoral returns.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

Inland Revenue is chasing unionist Matt McCarten’s Unite Support Services Ltd. for $150,750 in unpaid taxes after the department forced the company into liquidation last month.McCarten’s vehicle, which supplied administrative support services to the youth-orientated union Unite Inc., was put into liquidation by a High Court order last month after the tax department pursued it for “failure to provide for taxation,” according to the first liquidator’s report.

“Failure to provide for taxation” is a polite way of saying “couldn’t be arsed paying”. Which makes McCarten a hypocrite on a grand scale. As Commissioner of Inland Revenue Robert Russell so eloquently said this morning,

[p]eople who are non-compliant are basically stealing from their neighbours.

McCarten should stop doing that, and start paying his fair share. Otherwise, he’s no different to the rich pricks he rails against.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

It was distributed on 20 July 2011 in and around the Henderson, Auckland area.

It does not have an authorisation statement, which I believe is a legal requirement for any election advertising.

The Labour party also undertook to discontinue to send out these types of brochures in a press release of 9 July shortly after the Electoral Commission referred another brochure to the Police for prosecution. Their spokesman, Grant Robertson said:

“Labour has advised the commission that it will abide by the commission’s interpretation of the legislation. It has withdrawn the pamphlet from circulation, along with another similar publication. Between now and the election, it will apply a wide interpretation of the phrase ‘election advertisement’, and include formal promoter statements in the terms recommended by the commission on all such material.”

As you can see from the attachments, the Labour party has neither withdrawn the pamphlet nor complied with the law regarding promotor statements.

Could you please inform me whether this advertisement is legal, and if not what the steps are to ensure Labour are prosecuted for breaching the law.

In the event that Labour are not prosecuted through official channels could you please inform me of my rights to take a private prosecution against Labour for breaching the law.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.